 Hello, everyone, and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge, and I'm here today with MusicTeacher.com. And in this video, we're going to learn how to use an Ebo. So an Ebo is referred to as a hand-held synthesizer. So what this essentially does is it does a similar job to a violin bow. So if you've ever seen anyone play the electric guitar with a violin bow where you can get some really cool swells and sustain-like effects, this can do that. But it can also do a huge amount more. The name Ebo comes from electronic bow. So it's like a hand-held version of a violin bow, but in a much smaller package, and it's electronic. So the Ebo is powered by a 9-volt battery, which means it's completely wireless. What this does is it uses the power from the battery to produce a magnetic field. That magnetic field interacts with your guitar strings and your pickups to create sustain. Also, it creates a bunch of different effects, depending on where you position the Ebo and how you position the Ebo. So underneath the unit, we have a couple of different channels here. So in the middle, we've got this really deep channel. This is where we situate our string. And in these slightly narrower channels, that's where we rest the strings either side of the string we're effecting. On the front of the Ebo, we're gonna turn it on. There's a light. This is what we wanna point at our pickup. This is the front of the Ebo as it were. This is the area where the magnetic pulse comes from. There are two different modes on this particular Ebo I'm holding. We've got one mode which adds the regular sustain and we've got another mode which adds a harmonic sustain, which is like having an octave above the pitch you're hearing. For best practices when using an Ebo, you should always try and use your neck pickup because the Ebo will make your guitar louder and it will also add a lot of brightness to the signal. So the neck pickup works great and it also works great if you can back off your tone control as well. Of course, it will work with any combination of pickup and any type of pickup, but for the best results you wanna use as warm of a sound as you can possibly use. So neck pickup with the tone roll down, it's a great way to start. So before we start hearing the Ebo, the tones you're gonna be hearing in this video are coming from the Blackstar Studio 10 6R6, which I've got running on a slightly crunchy sound and I'm using this Stanford Crossroad Marquee, which is a Les Paul Star guitar with twin humbuckers. So before I do anything with the Ebo, the amp sounds like this. It's just at the point of break up. But I'm gonna be using the neck pickup, but with the tone rolled all the way down. So now we need to know how to hold the Ebo. So we're gonna hold it with the light end facing the neck pickup. So the curve of the Ebo is gonna be faced like this and we're gonna hold it flat to the strings. We can adjust the volume by tilting it away from the strings and lifting it up and down as well, but for best results you wanna rest the strings either side of the string you're effecting in the guidelines so that the string in the middle is in that central channel that we talked about. So with the Ebo on, it actually works even with the guitar not going through the amp. So if I just turn the Ebo on and position it here around the neck pickup, you can already hear that sustain happening because this is producing a magnetic field which is causing the string to vibrate. Where the magic happens with the Ebo is when we actually put this through the amplifier because then we're gonna get that infinite sustain through the amp. The good thing with using an Ebo for sustain is this gives us guaranteed sustain. So if you're someone who likes to hold notes at a gig, this could be a great addition to your toolkit. And also this means that the feedback we're gonna get is very, very predictable, but also we can guarantee that we'll get it. If you've ever tried to get feedback on a loud stage, you may know how hard it is to find that sweet spot where the amp and the guitar link up perfectly to get that right feedback. Now with an Ebo, we can do that at any volume anywhere on the stage we want. So that's how the infinite sustain sounds on the standard mode. Now I'm gonna flip it up to the harmonic mode so we get the same thing, but it's like adding an octave up. So as you can see, we can just keep holding that and enjoy that infinite sustain that this thing allows us to do. But we can also use this to give us some different sound effects. So in the standard mode, we can get a violin-like sound. So to get this, so make sure our tone controls are all the way back, we pick a note, we turn our Ebo on, but instead of going straight to that sweet spot above the neck pickup, we wanna bow into that position. So start a little bit lower. If I put it here, we're not gonna get the note. Now I'm gonna move the Ebo towards the pickup. See, I'm coming away each time. Coming away from the string actually decreases the volume slightly. So with that, we can get some almost violin-like sound effects. With the typical pickup arrangement on a guitar, there are two hotspots on the pickup, just either side, and in the middle is a dead spot. So if I go over the entire pickup, you'll notice I get to this point and we sound the sustaining note. Now we'll drop off slightly as I get towards the middle of the pickup and then it'll pick up again towards the back. So we can go towards those hotspots to create different swell-like textures. If you wanna do string bends with an Ebo, you just need to tilt the Ebo on one of its side axis away from the string. So I'm gonna bend the seventh fret of the E string. Notice I was tilting the Ebo away there to allow room for the string to not hit the sides of the magnetic channel in the middle of the Ebo. So when we're playing with an Ebo, we can apply a bunch of different techniques to create different textures with this. So let's say I wanna play something that sounds quite synthy. I'm gonna get my Ebo on my regular mode and I'm gonna just position that in my sweet spot right here. What I'm gonna do with my fratting hand is I'm just gonna move around a couple of different notes and I'm gonna play the note and I'm gonna come off the note. So I'm doing all the garter stuff here with my fratting hand, but instead of pulling off to an open string, I'm just releasing the pressure to a muted note. We can get some quite synthesizer-like sounds by doing this. But I can also just do legato. I can slide hammer on and pull off my way around the string and get that same sound, but a lot smoother. In the harmonic mode, we can do all of those same techniques, but have the addition of the octave up. One of my favorite things to do with an Ebo is to create a fake tremolo-style effect. So you can do this on the harmonic mode, or the standard mode. What we're gonna do is we're gonna pick a note and we're gonna find the sweet spot. So I'm just gonna start at the fifth fret of the G again. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pick a note but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna move the Ebo up and down above that sweet spot. That's gonna increase and decrease the volume. So because I'm really creating a tremolo-style effect with this, the amount I move the Ebo from the string determines how prominent the effect is. So if I'm doing a shallow movement, we're just gonna get this nice wavy tremolo. And if I pull away a little bit further, it's gonna be harsher and choppier. So there you go, there is a quick guide on how to get started with an Ebo and how to achieve infinite sustain and some really cool synth-like sounds. And Ebo is a great tool for any guitar player to have in their kit. It's not the sort of thing you're gonna use on every song, but from time to time, it is really cool to dig into some of the crazy textures and sound effects you can get from one of these things. Let us know down below in the comments if you guys use an Ebo in your playing and what your favorite Ebo tips and tricks are. And if there's anything else you'd like to see us talk about in these videos, please throw that below as well. Don't forget to check out the Black Star amplification on YouTube for more free videos just like this one today. And if you're looking for a music teacher in your local area, please head to musicteacher.com and check out the Music Teacher Database. There's a network of great teachers all around the country. Thank you guys so much for watching as always and I will see you very soon.